Becoming a Citizen Therapist

This book shows therapists how they can impact their communities by engaging their fellow citizens in addressing broad-based health and social problems.

The greatest untapped resources for improving our health and social well-being are the knowledge, energy, and first-hand wisdom of the individuals, families, and communities who have dealt with challenges in their everyday lives. Mental health professionals can learn how to leverage these relationships to enact broader, community-wide change, using practices that fall outside of traditional methods of mental health service delivery.

This book presents insights from the authors' two decades of work in the citizen health care model, in which they have partnered with leaders from a wide range of communities on initiatives designed to improve health and remove social barriers. Readers will learn big-picture strategies for identifying and developing community-level initiatives, from disease prevention to broader cultural challenges, as well as common problems that arise when doing this work.

Includes in-depth discussions of successful, real-world programs co-created by therapists and community members, including:

diabetes education anti-smoking campaigns political depolarization police interactions